Hamilton solar site debate stays hot, no agreement yet

HAMILTON -- There's no end yet to the polarizing debate over the Crosswicks-Hamilton Square Road commercial solar site application.

After more than 16 hours of testimony and four hearings, a plan to install 42,000 solar panels on an empty piece of former farmland heads to a fifth hearing on April 24. Zoning board members said they hope to wrap up the contentious application and make a decision then.

Developers Barry Black Sr. and son Barry Black Jr., doing business as BKB Properties, hope to construct the third large-scale, ground-mounted solar site in Hamilton. They are seeking a use variance to create a 60-acre, 10-megawatt facility in the township's Rural Resource Conservation (RRC) zone.

But the team has faced no shortage of opposition from neighbors and the environmental group Save Hamilton Open Space, who are loath to see another piece of Hamilton's dwindling farmland developed.

While past meetings have focused on landscape plans and how the panels would be screened from neighbors, a hearing Tuesday night was dominated by Save Hamilton Open Space attorney Michele Donato.

She presented a series of witnesses before the board to speak about the prime soils located on the property that could be irrevocably damaged by the construction process and the importance of those soils to the RRC zone.

Witnesses also produced photos of the PSE&G solar site on South Broad Street that show pools of stagnant water lying between panel rows and patchy grass growing underneath.

"I thought solar complexes such as these wouldn't have environmental impact, but now I think they do," said resident Ames Hoyt, who took the PSE&G photos.

Engineer Geoff Goll showed photos taken at a solar site in Branchburg, where topsoil was stripped off and dirt compacted flat by backhoes and other heavy equipment installing solar panels.

John Alice, the applicant's attorney, argued repeatedly that the photos of other sites were irrelevant.

His client, he said, would take care to preserve fertile soil

But Donato pressed the issue, calling on a parade of engineers, professors and soil experts to help build the case that the Black solar farm did not belong on productive farmland.

Larry Hepner, a soil and environmental science professor at Delaware Valley College, said the heavy equipment that would traverse the land for weeks to deliver and install thousands of solar panels could compact the soil, making it difficult to return the land to farming after the solar facility's lifespan reaches its end.

"It's simply not a given that we can bring these soils back to these productivity levels you have today in terms of prime agricultural soils and soils of statewide importance," he said.

Zoning board members played devil's advocate at times, noting that compaction resulted from plows and other farm equipment when the land was formerly farmed for corn, soybeans and pumpkins.